I was watching this short video from TED and marveling at the achievement of branding expert Alan Siegel. We need to mean business when it comes to communications. I cannot recall the number of times I read an email intended for an HR or other scanning system, and not a person.

It's disheartening, especially since English is such a flexible language -- let an Italian tell you. And it's offensive to be on the receiving end of such a snooty piece, as if organizing the words in a passive voice and ornate fashion could distance you from the responsibility you still hold over your message.

Perhaps I cannot shake my classical training. I have indeed a degree in Latin and ancient Greek, and my Liberal Arts higher education is in linguistics -- I majored in English. Yeah, I learned it on Shakespeare, the poets, the many great writers that ever lived and shared their thought in this beautiful language. I keep learning and earning the expressions every single day.

Reflecting on how we connect, I can offer:

strive for simplicity and economy of words with richness of thought

seek connection without condescension

look to emulate and not copy, making it yours is what makes it special

This doesn't mean cheapening of thought. Quite the contrary. I didn't start appreciating poetry until I was mature enough to understand how I felt about it. Such simple words, such impact.

I read a lot, much of it online. And feel the subtle nuances of words that seem to say welcome and instead say "go to hell", "I hold the keys". All shrouded under the guise of expertise. Putting things in plain words doesn't mean you dumb it down. It means your intent is to connect.

Things have changed a great deal in the last 18 months. Companies are getting serious about social media. And we've seen enough cases recently about mishandled situations in social media to be thinking about what makes sense as a team mix.

In a quick email exchange about his post good agencies don't hire social media strategists, Sean Howard and I were musing that outsourcing digital is as much a risk as is hoping that a social media expert will save the day. Is there a role for agencies in the digital space?

Should companies outsource social media?

It's no fun wrestling with a question alone, so I reached out to 93 of my connections on LinkedIn to find out what they're thinking along with us. My selection was based on diversity of perspective -- corporate, agency, consulting side -- and geography -- Australasia, Europe, North America.

The question was also posted on the public LinkedIn Q&As and in addition to the responses I received from my friends, which were 20 (19 on LinkedIn and one by email), 11 more people added their take, 2 of whom did not have some form of connection to me.

Let's take a look at the responses.

When you read through the public Q&A, you will see that most answers are a blend of all of the themes that follow. A few core themes that emerged: authenticity, agency and company can work together, and that it may make sense to partner with an agency to ramp up, especially for an organization with scarce resources and internal know-how. A few were totally against outsourcing any of it.

Part of the answers that represent the main themes:

Authenticity is important

One of the opportunities for business to enjoy the benefit of social
media is to express value to customers in an authentic, unmediated voice
enhanced by the potential for immediacy.

Without doubt there are practices and skills that are needed in social
media but it is important that organisations begin to acquire them
directly, rather than mediating through third parties.

It is a significant trend that brands are moving away from a core
obsession with how their image is projected to how well they engage with
people (and I shy away from terms like consumers or customers
intentionally - in an always-on world we are more than walking wallets).
The metaphor of conversation takes on an altogether more literal
meaning. [more online - view David MacGregor's profile]

As usual, the answer is "it depends". There are many facets to social
media, some of which make perfect sense (e.g. monitoring, measuring,
reporting, app development) and other things - mostly in the content
development space - that really need to come from an authentic place
within the client. [more online - view Simon Young's profile]

The thought of outsourcing something that is so personal makes me
nervous. Part of the beauty of social media is it's authenticity. I feel
that once you begin down the road of having individuals not intimately
tied to the product, service and/or industry, you risk sliding down the
slippery slope. [more online - view DJ Waldow's profile]

There's a line here that shouldn't be crossed. Any company or
organization can benefit from outsourcing the "how to" of social media
to a credible consultancy. The rub is when you lose authenticity by
outsourcing "go to" implementations. [view John Pope's profile]

Agency and company can work together

Outsourcing does not have to be such a dirty or negative term, nor is it
so black and white of a decision. The choice to outsource must be
determined on a case-by-case basis based upon the company's culture and
objectives. It is alright to outsource as long as the company and
consumers have clear expectations of responsibilities.

Some areas I can see where it would be helpful to outsource are:
- aggregating data
- gleaning insights from large data sets
- filtering through data stream to highlight items requiring personal
response [more online - view Lauren Vargas' profile]

From the corporate perspective, I think that you have to approach this
answer strategically. What's the attitude and approach your company
already applies to marketing and advertising, to customer service, to
outsourcing in general? If outsourcing is already a core tactic your
company uses to create campaigns or implement programs, them outsourcing
some social media functions may make sense for your company. If most of
these programs are run in-house, then I think working with an agency
should be handled very strategically so that efforts align with your
internal efforts. [more online - view Tiffany Monhollon Wilson's profile]

getting started in social media is daunting for most brands because to
those who don't have this in their bloodstream, it's a buzz word - a box
that needs to be checked. The CEO heard that Twitter is all the rage,
that smart companies are blogging, or that they need a Facebook
"presence," and it becomes a quarterly objective. It also comes with a
10 page contract for internal employees before they post their first
tweet, describing what they can/can't say under penalty of termination.
It's enough to make you cringe.

Hiring an expert - an agency or a consultant - to provide guidance on
the tools and potential strategies is smart, as it will shorten the
learning curve. But you can't outsource your voice. [view Stephen Denny's profile]

the creation of a social media strategy is best done with the
help of a social media consultant or outside agency.

I think the day-to-day is probably best done by someone internally
provided they have the time and autonomy to engage on behalf of the
company.

Ultimately it's a question of resources and core competencies. Much the
same as a company with no knowledge of accounting might outsource their
accounting, I think certain companies may struggle, at least initially,
with social media. Having an outside perspective from an individual or
team that is passionate and well informed about social media can be
exceptionally valuable for a company and could help avoid future
mistakes. [more online - view Jeff Gibbard's profile]

While I strongly believe in keeping functions like marcomm in-house, I
do believe organizations just starting adding social media to their
marcomm mix should consult with an experienced professional to ensure it
starts off right if they don't have staff already working with social
media. [view Ann Marie van den Hurk's profile]

[...] There are some
tasks that may or may not make sense to in-source.
For
example, companies that want to produce high quality audio or video
podcasts (the kind we produce for clients) may not want to make an
investment in equipment and training, and while inexpensive tools like
Flip cameras are available, we don't encourage clients to depend on them
for sophisticated productions that require professional equipment.

Content development should always originate at the client with
input
from the consultants about what works and what might not, but it has
to
be a closely integrated partnership, and doesn't necessarily all belong
in-house. [view Steve Lubetkin's profile]

Outsourcing makes sense when

If you truly "get" social media and have the time to nurture it, you can
do it yourself, but most CEOs and company owners don't have the time or
desire to do so. So, outsourcing makes sense.

I run one of those companies that gets the outsourced work. We are an
internet marketing and PR firm. It all blends together and is semantics,
but I tend to think of branding agencies as dealing with the bigger
strategy, and smaller firms like mine being able to be nimble and react
quicker to the changing tides of social media.

The common reason people outsource is that Social Media all seems a bit
scary; companies don't know where to start, how much time to invest, how
to prove ROI - even the very basics such as WHY they need to use Social
Media.

When I started a Social Media strategy for my own company, it was quite
overwhelming. What tools to use to save time, how to attract more
followers / fans, what content will people be interested in? What worked
for me was attending various seminars and training sessions
[disclosure: 2e2 provide Social Media training]... [more online - view Emma Henry's profile]

Companies ready for social media (willing to invest time/money,
resources)

Ultimately from the business owner's perspective, I recommend to teach
someone how to fish instead of giving them the fish and charge them
every month. But they need to know the implication of both to decide
what's good for them.

However; agencies come in handy to scale and provide the missing pieces
from a resource perspective such as production and ideas... [more online - view Eric Tsai's profile]

[...] there is a role for outsourcing digital in the social media space.
Surprisingly, there are still many companies out there who are not
familiar with how to use social media to build and monitor their brand.
That said, if I were to hire an external supplier to run my social media
campaign, I would choose someone who had expertise in social media -
and social media only. [more online - view Karen Hegmann's profile]

it is much better to outsource to a social media expert, than fumble
through and make a big PR mistake. Once you start a viral brush fire
it's hard to put it out. Of course I'm biased as this is what I do for a
living, but I believe that you need someone to do your social media,
you can't just assign it to someone who's already got a job.

You need someone experienced in reputation and brand management, someone
who can track it and give you daily or weekly statistics. Someone who
also knows how to get ranked in search engines as that's part of the
game. This can't be learned in a week or a month, some are obviously
more talented than the rest. [more online - view Patrick Curl's profile]

For the great majority of companies, social media should be outsourced.
How and to whom depends on the company's goals (and budgets, of course).
If the social media is a video blog or music based, for example, the
work will be handled differently than if the main goal is customer
service communication. So, yes, the outsourcing will make sense for most
companies simply because of the specific and evolving technology tools
that can help make the most of social media efforts. [view Glenn Hansen's profile]

[...] A lot of people
(usually people who run "social media consultancies") talk about social
media as if it stands in complete isolation from other types of media.
I am inherently biased because I run a PR agency, but we are finding a
lot of success in integrating digital and social media activity into
wider PR campaigns for clients. This is all about communicating with an
audience, whether that's through the filter of traditional media, or
more directly through social media, and this is a skill that PR
consultancies are naturally very good at, with the caveat that specific
skills such as SEO and online monitoring are often best left to experts
in those fields. [more online - view Eddie May's profile]

I think it first depends on how large the company is and how much time
and financial resources they are willing to invest. [...]

I am saying digital media agency rather than PR or branding agency only,
because a digital media should be able to understand the principles of
online reputation management. And that is what a company needs. A
digital media agency should be able to consider PR and branding as well
when developing a social media strategy, but add the online bit to it. [more online - view Daniela Badalan's profile]

Communication results matter

Agencies can provide teams that are more scalable, and benefit with the
learning from other clients.

[...] for clients that have a long
time partnership with an agency, the downside of business knowledge or
authenticity isn't much of a problem [...] there are agency people that are also
authentic, conversational, inspiring and with a sound knowledge of the
social web. And with decades of practice in communication, not 2 years
on Twitter.

In the end, it's the result that matters: you can have an internal team
with 10 people but with no freedom to act, or partnering with an agency
that sometimes is free from the corporate culture and more agile on
shipping things. [more online - view Armando Alves profile]

As social media evolves, I believe people will come to see it less and
less as a separate business practice, or even a marketing channel, and
more as simply another communication tool -- and an essential one,
regardless of the size of the company and your role in it.

So in that regard, it's kind of like asking whether companies should
outsource email or their telephone. And the answer is that there are
some pieces that definitely should be outsourced, but other parts, it's
ludicrous to even ask the question.
[...]

Social media culture implies a different approach to internal
organization, Human Resources, R&D, production and customer care,
it's not only a communication and marketing business.

Companies need to rethink themselves in order to fully embrace the
culture of open conversation, and good consultants (digital strategy
ones, I'd suggest) should help them to understand the tools and define
effective strategies, keeping in mind branding and business objectives.

You can not externalize your daily conversation (be it CEO's blog or the
answer to a customer in trouble), nor you can fully delegate the
definition of your objectives, or the evolution of your corporate
culture and ethic.

Nonetheless, good external experts can contribute with their expertise,
and bring an external point of view which is precious to define an
effective strategy. [view Alessandra Farabegoli's profile]

my take is that this is not a black or white situation for several
reason: the company structure, the attitude toward relationship with
clients, the market, the consulting agencies roster (adv, pr, etc.).

I believe that companies should not outsource social media function,
because social media is strictly related to brand perception as well as
brand value. Indeed, companies should look for advisors able to carry
them across the perils of the social web: when to answer and when not to
answer, how to answer, to whom give the first answer, etc. To be honest
I see a majority of consultants prepared on the social web but not on
some marketing and branding basics..... [view Gianandrea Facchini's profile]

In general terms though, Social media is a two-way, or multi-directional
'conversation' that you're having online. It's the same conversation
that you'd have off-line.

So if you're confident in giving responsibility for someone else,
external to your company, to speak, engage and converse on your behalf
(off-line AND online), then perhaps outsourcing is a possibility for
you.

Myself, i would not feel confident in an external company having the
same passion, experience, drive or vision as my own team, so from that
perspective i would never contemplate outsourcing. [view Matthew Ogston's profile]

How do you decide?

The quick answer: if it is transactional, not core, someone else can do
it for you. If it is relational, keep it as close to home as possible.

Should a company outsource it's employees? Same question. Social media
is a direct communication platform, which is a unique opportunity to
ask, listen and engage. Why would you outsource your R&D, customer
service and marketing? Easy: you don't care about your business OR you
strive for a 4 hour workweek.

An agency's role is to help develop strategies, guide implementation and
train internal staff how to manage social media. [more online - view Kent Lewis' profile]

No. Social media is deeply personal. You've got to live and breathe the
message and no one does that better than you.

However social media is handled, whether internally or outsourced, the
person(s) handling it should be conversant with the various social media
platforms, how they work and what are the appropriate protocols that
make for good manners on those platforms. The person(s) must also be
familiar with and understand the company's products, brand positioning
and messaging. He or she must also be a good communicator, able to
write clearly and succinctly. He or she must also continually monitor
the social media world, to watch for company or brand mentions and to
get an early indication of problems with the product and/or customer
service. He or she must be able to respond or quickly get to the right
people within the organization who can help with an appropriate
response.

All of these criteria can be met by an outsourced
provider, be it a p.r. agency, ad or branding agency or a digital
agency. The key is to find an agency that can properly handle all the
functions mentioned above. [view David Reich's profile]

Social media is part of the overall communication strategy of a company.
If that company works with a PR or Branding agency, they should be
involved in shaping the strategy for engagement and suggest content. As
a PR person, I do not speak for my clients, I work with them to help
shape their message and stay on track with their strategic goals.
Social media is social. It's a conversation. Conversations are between
individuals, not representatives. Everyone markets you whether it is
part of their job description or not. It is the job of the digital, PR
or Branding agency to help shape the message, not engage directly on
behalf of the client. [view Tami Belt's profile]

According to the 16-page report, marketers still need ideas (to
make emotional connections); interaction (to reach, connect
and most importantly be found); and, of course, intelligence (to
optimize brand experiences and more importantly predict outcomes). But
this is no longer as simple as identifying an insight, translating it
into messages, and measuring awareness or transactions.

It's not about one isolated company anymore -- it's about the whole ecosystem: partners along with other companies who may compete for the same customers by offering different ways of getting the same job done. Never mind internal silos!

Organizations need to understand these new dynamics -- so they can collaborate, crowd source, and augment wherever it makes sense. It's not "either/or" in customers minds anymore. Companies that win have learned to operate with "and/and". I have a MacBook and a Dell laptop at home. I know people who have an HD Flip camera and a Sony -- the list goes on.

You need to be part of that ecosystem. Agencies need to figure out what they need to help you make sense of things and go operational with them.

***

What should a company-agency relationship look like? Partnering makes sense to augment skills, go deeper, scale better, ramp up on tools. There are things like integration, editorial direction, social behavior, brand essence that need to come from the organization.

An agency can tease these out. Because it is a third party, it can help with strategy, setting up processes and work flows, feeding back analytics and like-category/industry intelligence, filling the gaps you may have on your team until the learning curve and talent acquisition are up to speed.

An agency cannot decide who you want to be when you grow up as a brand. An agency can help you get things going in social media to a point when you don't have top down buy in. And I will stop there, because I really think we're getting to the interesting bit with the question.

Are you outsourcing social media? Are you thinking about it?

***

Whenever I work with the community on a question, I like to also use the tools at our disposal to learn about social networks and dynamics. This time I picked LinkedIn, because the question was substantial. It was the right network -- 30 responses overall.

Note that the majority of responses came after the question was integrated with an email request to professionals who have a connection with me. The existing relationship piece accounted for the 21% response rate. Wouldn't you love to have that kind of results in your next program? Remember two key concepts: integration, permission from relationships.

Findings from a landmark PRWeek survey of 128 clients, drawn from across
in-house comms, marketing and digital departments, reveal exactly how
organisations are grappling with the challenge of integrating social
media into their existing operations.

You are not alone. Who gets the biggest slice of outsourcing budgets so far? PR agencies. I believe that's about to change big time and I'll tell you why in another post.

***

We're talking social networks, thus one should expect distributed conversations. Alessandra Farabegoli took the initiative to pose the question on FriendFeed (caution, Italian, thread carefully) -- it resulted in a very healthy conversation with 16 likes and 15 contributors. I also counted 4 tweets about the question.

Maybe some of these actions would have happened anyway without my established presence on those social networks -- I might not have known about them, not been able to participate without an account.

A small voice in my head also says that without an established presence in all those networks -- and this blog -- we would not be having this conversation rich with contributions.

***

Should you outsource social media? Is a good question. The bigger question is how should you think about social media transforming your business opportunities? How do you participate in the market's ecosystem? Weigh in!

Many organizations have become really good at streamlining customer support and service processes. Yet, as co-managing editor of Consumerist.com Ben Popken reminds us in the foreword to Flip the Funnel -- processing is not solving.

Putting in place a good customer retention strategy is a good business move. It's also a smart branding move.

You may be familiar with the new business
acquisition sales funnel or AIDA: Awareness, Interest, Desire, and
Action.

To address a company's ability to engage customers' social connections, Jaffe flips the acronym to ADIA: Acknowledgment, Dialogue, Incentivization, and Activation.

Maintaining a continuous dialogue with customers and focusing on their experience from the moment of purchase onward may result in powerful word of mouth for your business.

There are three key points to this strategy that are well within an organization's reach, yet keep getting overlooked.

How digital and mobile require new thinking

Technology is your friend. It's not the end all be all. It will enable your business to personalize while showing its humanity. It's very reasonable to put in place systems to achieve scale. Consider tailoring those systems to differing customer segment needs and that automation is not always the answer.

And neither is blocking social networks at work. Ramon DeLeon's customer video response was more effective than Patrick Doyle's statement after a Monsters, Inc. move at Domino's. True, they addressed two different circumstances. On the credibility and likability scale, DeLeon's is a good example that customers respond to sincere and passionate gestures better.

You cannot be everywhere, yet people now can find you and talk about you literally from the palm of their hands. How are you using technology to enable customer referrals (for example)?

How employees help flip the funnel

Organizations that treat their employees like gold bridge the gap in customer retention. The two are closely interconnected. Is there any doubt in your mind that a connected company would have an advantage in the marketplace?

Jaffe cites Costco's culture of taking care of one another and promoting exclusively from within, which continues to engage and energize employees on behalf of customers.

Another example is Best Buy's Blue Shirt Nation, an internal social network that has transformed Blue Shirts, the company's store employees, from a liability to an unmatched strategic asset from the inside out. Having an internal place for sharing ideas is just the beginning.

For the open approach to work, leaders need to put skin in the game, be believable, bring people together, and try things (from the Best Buy 15-slide manifesto) just like the rest of the company.

How flipping the funnel is about commitment

The underlying concept in the book is about the 80:20 rule or 90:10, if you prefer. Marketing has been operating at the wrong end of that rule, by focusing on new customer acquisition. Customer retention requires a new level of commitment from an organization -- one that puts customers service in the new marketing seat.

People want to recommend good services and products to their networks. Therefore, customer experience can truly transform your business. Fostering a culture of access, collaboration, and responsiveness is a step in the right direction of commitment to service excellence.

And with the widespread adoption of social media, organizations are receiving continuous feedback about their brands and service -- and will need to communicate what they're doing about that feedback. As Jaffe reports for Virgin, many companies that are already participating recognize that this investment:

is resource intensive

sets new expectations with customers

requires a strong stomach (feedback can be brutally honest)

***

There is no going back. There's nothing back there to go to, your customers have changed the way they think about purchases, forever. This is not about the crisis anymore. It's about gaining perspective and reprioritizing.

Jaffe addresses the final part of the book to the third customer -- you. How can you flip the funnel for yourself? What if you thought about yourself as your customer? What would you do differently?

***

[Disclosure: I received a copy
of Flip the Funnel from Joseph Jaffe, who I met in person very recently as SxSW. My admiration for his achievements is genuine and in no way driven by his charming South African accent. This review and recommendation is based upon the quality of
the material - and not on how I obtained it.]

Confess it, you have thought about rewriting a news item in your own head. Especially when you've had an experience with a company's service or a product that didn't quite live up to the story you're now reading in the newspaper or trade magazine.

Today, you don't even need to have a blog to be a publisher.

With tools such as Posterous and Tumblr, or if you have a Facebook page, you can easily post content and socialize it, or take a series of small bites on Twitter. Good for you, good for everyone.

How do you apply communication in a world where everyone can be media?

It could happen to your business

Rich Becker provides an example of what happens when complaints are news. I don't know about you, I'm still marveling at the response a business owner wrote to a customer. Small business owners tend to work many roles, from sales, to administrative duties, to marketing and communications.

While we could all agree that publics can be a bit of a challenge, it is never a good idea to act on impulse when communicating in digital media. It may feel good to write what you think, and it will hurt you long term. What is valid for college grads and young employees is valid for seasoned business owners.

Indeed, loss of business is much less public -- people prefer to avoid confrontation. Who counsels you on matters of public communication?

PR doesn't equal press release

The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) posted a definition of public relations that can help you navigate how the profession has shifted from providing publicity to building relationships. It is still prevalent thinking that PR = press releases and media relations.

Why is it that most business owners and organization executives still insist on focusing precisely on those two? Probably this is due to two ideas: 1) that the company message needs to be pushed out; 2) that media is the only viable third party endorsement.

Yet, this strategy still largely depends on other people doing your bidding based upon one document and repeated, sometimes annoying, insistence as to its relevance for all. A document that, after dozens of reviews, may also have lost the focus on what it wanted to convey.

Become a platform

Today you have the tools to become not just a regular commentator on a particular topic. Appealing to search traffic in the process. You have the opportunity to become the filter and educator on an issue that is pressing for you and your industry.

Often financial services firms ask me how they can blog or participate in new media with all the regulatory issue they face. How about starting a specific education channel for customers? Pick one specialty, and become the go to aggregator and commentator on that topic.

Organizations continue to be stuck on their products and services -- and miss on the opportunity to change the information game.

Examples of everyone is media

Fred Wilson, a venture capital (VC) professional who took to blogging, has become a popular and well read commentator on all things related to technology and VCs. In the process, he discovered that his readers found it beneficial to learn more about all things related to running a business. So he started a series of MBA Mondays.

In the face of the financial meltdown, both mainstream media and financial services firms did a fine job at talking to us as if we knew what they know. Alas, we haven't developed an app to read minds, yet. A simple site aggregating background, key facts and salient useful information would have been helpful.

Matt Thompson built such a context in the money meltdown. He did something similar to convey information about the US health system reform -- probably the best explanation for the site's intended purpose comes in the form of a response to a letter to the editor.

From the site: when Drew beats Cancer they hope to have sponsors that will donate a
dollar
for every participant to partner
LIVESTRONG. Geoff Livingston raised funds for @LiveStrong cancer research recently. In the post, he provides some lessons learned you can use to design a donation campaign for your nonprofit.

***

There is still tremendous untapped potential for organizations to become publishers, curators, and platforms for useful information and resources pertaining to their industry and business. Why wait to have an issue to anticipate, analyze and interpret public opinion, for example?

Think of the potential to conduct and evaluate programs of action and
communication to achieve the informed public understanding necessary to
the success of your organization’s purpose. Today you can do that on an ongoing basis.

Research a niche, find a need, go for it -- or find someone who has, and sponsor them.

When you ask people what their favorite words in business are, they will tell you things like: great, thank you, please, be nice, dependable, apologetic, peaceful,
care, honor, laugh, help, how, we, have fun, be friends, value, unbridled optimism, grateful, well done, how can I help? -- these are all awesome words.

Empathy, passion, thoughtfulness come across.

Then we go to work and we: use, leverage, push, message, they, ripping competitors' kidneys out, campaigns, gobbledygook made-up disembodied corporate lingo in the third person -- heavens forbid we use "I". Social, collaborative, positive, helpful lingo is replaced by war metaphors.

Is it because of that other word: profit? Do rationalizations and detachment fill a need to feel important? We all know that there's a lot of imitating others going on -- best practices and toxic cultures alike. Something is getting lost in translation between human intent and expression.

Is it the magic of creation?

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Making things up is making things possible.

Any great movement or change starts inside, in one individual -- the "I" -- and spreads as a meme across communities. Because each member of that community feels like a unit of one -- one, distinct person, connected in thinking with others who feel the same way.

Have you noticed how with the explosion of social interaction we've reverted back from war to biology metaphors? If one person can indeed help bring about change...

What can you do?

You could learn to think independently. Working a little harder at figuring out your calling, getting closer to your passion and flow -- and forgetting what other people think, for a change. You can get feedback without getting hit with a 2 x 4 over the forehead.

Choose your mentors and advisers upon their ability to teach you by example. They exist, I promise. There are people out there, right now, with the amazing capacity for empathy, thoughtfulness, and passion. Pick them. Fire the rest.

Choose your words carefully:

do great work

say thank you

ask please

be nice

be dependable

care

honor yourself and others

laugh -- a lot

help

be peaceful

stay grateful

acknowledge something that is well done

have fun

be a friend -- beyond the social network way

Haque said about the Internet, I say it's broader than that. Far from fueling meaningful conversation, today's "social" web (and organized time) is a
world full of the linguistic equivalent of drive-by shootings.

Choose connection. If you learn to think for yourself, and respect the other, you can still make a contrary compelling argument without becoming a contrarian just because.

As I do during or after conferences, I'm organizing to follow up with people I reconnected with and new people I met at SxSWi and the social media panel I spoke at in Philadelphia on St. Patrick's Day. Over the years, I found some things to be more helpful than others when it comes to the information you put on your business card.

However you handle the input of business card information into your database -- whether by iPhone bump, card scanning, or manual input -- the best way to be remembered is still to be memorable.

Given that I manage to still stay connected with a massive number of people, I'm happy to share with you 5 tips that will get someone quite busy to connect with you and not someone else.

(1.) Display your preferred direct phone number prominently

You may think that listing a Web URL is sexier and you might even be right. If compulsive Web browsers are your intended audience and you're not in a hurry for business, go for it. For the rest of us, a phone number does the trick, especially when we're looking to close a deal.

A direct line works best. Many smart phones cannot deal with an extension. Set up a redirect 800-number, instead. And you can be smart with direct lines and track your leads at the same time. Or get Google Voice if you're not spooked at the power of any one corporation over your information.

Make it easy for people to dial you with one touch on their address book.

(2.) Put an image on the card

It will help people connect you with your information better, and humanize your business at the same time. I mention it because unless you said something really interesting and I wrote a note on the back of your card, I'm a bit foggy on who you are a week later.

We all meet many more people than we used to. Use a visual that connects strongly to what you do. If you're the product, consider using a photo of yourself.

This doesn't mean your card needs to look like that of a real estate agent, unless that is your business, of course. It just helps jog memory if you have a visual aid. You can see how I implemented the photo on my card above. Yes, I'm aware of the fact that my direct line is blanked out there.

(3.) Give people your preferred ways of communication

A business card is a communication tool, it can be as technical or as low tech as you want to make it. When you choose what to put on it, you're orienting others on your preferred ways to communicate. If, for example, email is the best way to reach you, just list that.

List three ways, if you intend people to use either one based upon their preference. However, remember that less may be more. If you have four telephone numbers, I do wonder about the efficiency of your system.

Take into consideration your customers' communication styles and needs when selecting contact details.

(4.) Include content that sets you apart

In addition to using a distinctive image, consider either using a well crafted tag line that expresses your mission or statement of purpose best. Even better if you hone this short phrase to be your unique selling proposition or value. Set yourself apart, by being yourself.

The line "connecting ideas and people -- how talk can change our lives" represents who I am, as well as what I do. And it's broad enough to encompass the many ways in which I help companies with brand strategy and marketing communications to connect with customers, communities, and social influencers.

The best way for someone to remember you is to actually have talked with you more than the time it takes to hand them your card. Some people are so popular that giving them your card will get you totally lost in their virtual assistant tracking software with no project attached to it.

In most cases, in fact, having the patience to connect the dots between your work ethics and trusted referrals and cultivating those relationships by being helpful over time make the card exchange the contract. You are going to do work together.

Develop big ears to figure those nuances out and you will close more deals, while using fewer cards.

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These are my ideas, based upon what works for me. What works for you? What else would you recommend?

After people have bought your product or service, you're still on the hook to provide good content. In this phase of the buyer's decision journey, there are many more opportunities to build upon the purchase experience -- and help your newly found customer spread the word about your product or service.

I ran a very informal poll on Twitter about what product packaging and brochures/literature people keep, the other night. The answers sound like things I heard from acquaintances and friends before. What do people generally keep when the purchase is made?

things they can reuse -- jars, boxes, glass bottles

items that contain warranty information -- appliances, electronics

literature that is either interactive, or fun -- mostly cars in this category

Repurposing makes for good marketing long after the purchase is made in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) and direct to consumer (or B2C) categories. Companies like Apple, high fashion powerhouses like Hermès and Tiffany's and luxury brands have learned the power of making the package part of the appeal.

Many car makers have been experimenting with their brochures as well. Interactive brochures and fun promotional ones, like those of the new VW Beetle and Mini Cooper (they have an iPhone app, too). Apple iPod packaging always gets a mention -- Nano or Shuffle.

Alright, this may work for CPG and B2C companies. What about businesses that sell to other businesses (B2B)? What leave behind value can they pack in literature and brochures? Do people really pass those along?

You won't be surprised to hear that the answer is yes, as long as you

Confirm they made the right choice

Your customers are the most vulnerable once they signed on the dotted line and complete the purchase. Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM is a nice seal of approval, one that hopefully has not led the large corporation to sit on its laurels. Chances are, your brand may need some extra boost.

Since by signing with you they gave you their trust, you can continue to help them manage the downside risk of their purchase experience by making what you offer customers stand out. You are helping your customers rationalize their purchase.

You certainly don't want to get back home or to the office after a very expensive purchase, and not have a tangible, rational, explanation of why you bought it. BMW 7 Series will come with a serious manual about top notch German engineering and all sorts of high end goods -- you just earned the copy.

A lot of effort is put into literature to promote what you sell. Are you taking a second look at post purchase brochures?

Tell them what they just bought

A colleague came back from the dentist a few weeks ago after a long treatment. When I asked him what he paid for, he responded, a brand new smile. That's exactly what it was. You know how he knew that? From reading the brochure in the dentist's office.

There's still plenty of room for B2B companies to leverage what they know and educate, inform, impress customers with their communications though well crafted and useful content.

Have you thought about your leave behind message as away to restate your customer's experience?

Give them something to share

This is not just ten copies of that brochure or piece of literature, the one you wrote for all purposes on the subject. Think outside the share this widget for a moment, and into another kind of widget. Make one that contains something tangible for them.

The best mobile apps help you get something done, on the go. Southwest Airlines iPhone app is perfect. A few menu items, you select what you need, get it done on the go. They need to work a bit harder on routing text message options when people select those, instead of making calls.

Find a way to think about different uses for apps, for example customer service. Don't underestimate the power of a great experience -- people always share that one. And you get the benefits of making a customer happy and getting word of mouth marketing on top of that.

Very few
people convert to a complex purchase online. Get them to a telephone or a meeting as the call to action -- face to face conversation more likely leads to
conversion. Higher engagement and interaction are embedded in this
phase.

Think about:

allowing community transparency for purchase validation

offering value to the customer's team and peers

facilitating interaction with you and your company

A customer's decision journey is not a straight funnel anymore. By understanding their content post purchase needs, you may actually continue to interest them and their colleagues or friends in new purchases with you.

There's always more. What materials have you found useful and shareable?

I started thinking about the idea of creating customer intimacy after reading Kevin Roberts book, Lovemarks six years ago, when it was first published. Roberts described the characteristics of intimacy as commitment, empathy, and passion.

Those are great to have when dealing with people. Companies can demonstrate those qualities by hiring and training people willing to go to the mat for customers, and able to communicate so in real time.

Despite the widespread popularity of using social media for businesses to humanize the purchasing and service experience, Frank Eliason from Comcast continues to be the most widely cited example. That's because he engages at a personal level, demonstrating commitment, empathy and passion.

Not every business can afford a person dedicated to responding and engaging. What do you do then?

How do you affect that KPI?

Customer conversations are still not tracked as closely in a business
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) or key part of its measurable
objectives. If your objective is to: "Increase average revenue per
customer from abc to xyz by date", "average revenue per customer" is
the KPI.

Conversation can help you when there is a potential support issue. It can also support customer activation with content.

Mitch Joel has some good ideas about the new marketing conversation. Publishing is pervasive now, and marketing has traditionally been associated with the promotional end of things, which you could consider a type of publishing. Modern marketing is rediscovering the integrated nature of marketing.

Where
do marketers go from there? About the last thing most
marketers need is putting more hours towards the creation of what amounts
to a new product. I wonder, does the post mix tactics with strategy?

When I met her as President of IKEA North America, Pernille Lopez said it best -- you can copy what others are doing, without knowing what's behind it, you may not succeed. How can copying give you customer intimacy and engagement, since you're not being yourself?

This is the main reason why while benchmarks, best practices, and case studies are helpful as a framework for thinking, they will never tell you what you should do. You're not them. You don't employ the same people, you don't have the same customers, partners, brand perception, and so on.

Social media is a whisper

Putting in place content automation tools is a great thing for scale and tracking. To achieve customer intimacy, especially if you're not enjoying it at the moment, you may need a bit more activation to engage people.

The Frank Eliason way is one way. He didn't just put out periodical tweets with links to helpful posts on your cable service or to the self service forum. He got out there and responded to messages from customers -- not tomorrow, not when the next service rep was available. He did that in real time, at the moment of need.

What is louder than a shout? You may consider what he did personally, one on one, a mere whisper, given the scale of the company's customer base. Yet, all those actions added up to the company's second shot at reputation in the marketplace. Which made deposits in the engagement and thus KPI department.

Content is your friend

Content is another, viable way. Think of content as a social object. As we've been discussing in our series on writing content for the buyer's decision journey, connections do happen through information, research, ideas, news, and more. There is no market for your message means stop talking about your product.

Instead, start talking about what problems you help solve for customers. Make them the heroes, help them be smarter, better informed, more effective in their work. You may have been working on your blog for a month or two and wondering: what works to attract readers?

From my experience, it's about writing content that addresses their issues, setting and keeping to expectations, and sharing your best tips. Buyers have become more sophisticated thanks to marketers -- you spot promotion over substance in a heartbeat.

Customer intimacy is achievable with content in any medium. However, don't forget its companion -- timely communication. Without it, you may be losing sight of your ultimate strategy, which I'm sure is your flavor of winning in the marketplace.

3 things you can do today

If your customer service is broken, or your product is broken, you need to fix that
first. However, many of you are probably just a bit worried that this blogging and social media thing will be a big time suck. The tools are your friend.

1. Determine the kind of problems you help your customers solve

2. Find out what online destinations your customers prefer

3. Make sure your content is relevant to your customers 100% of the time

There are ways to make
your content sticky. You can still be all business and achieve customer intimacy with content. Be on target, insist on quality information, and be consistent. And, I almost forgot, you don't need to have dozens of comments to each post for your content to create intimacy.

I was overwhelmed by the kindness of people I had not heard from ever in the comments here while at SxSWi. Your content is top notch, they told me, it helps me think through what to do next. Social media makes me approachable. The main reason why I was approached was the content I offer.

***

Even with Twitter chats, if you ask them, people will tell you they don't really want engagement, it's an outcome, a nice additional benefit, not their main goal. What they want is content they can use to do smarter stuff, better.

Do you think it's participation that creates intimacy? What about engagement? Weigh in!

Jason Falls already wrote about it, so I might as well confess, I participated to the Chevy Voltinfluencer outreach program at SxSWi. The best part was that I'm a vegetarian and I still decided to go to the Salt Lick to spend quality time with Chris Barger and the GM team.

I even agreed to do a short video interview after dinner to talk about the conference and my take on the Chevy Volt, which I did not drive. The team helping GM gain visibility for the car marker new initiatives are doing a great job getting the word out about the new models and the value props of driving the car.

Chevy's outreach is a good example of why the relations part of PR matters. Both the GM team, and the Fleishman-Hillard team, the car maker's agency, reached out to people in their networks. Relationships matter even more in crowded situations like SxSWi this year (I'm told attendance was up 40% from 2009).

Also, check out Chevy Team Detroit, an initiative designed to talk about the people and the experience of the contest -- not the car itself. Putting emphasis on the people and their relationships and story is Marketing and PR in new media.

If you're thinking about a career in PR, pay attention to the agencies and people who are doing it right. Remember that each one of us, no matter where we sit in an org chart, has an opportunity to change the game -- and help gain visibility for a product or service with the right people.

Why insist on mindlessly pulling email addresses from people you have not taken the time to get to know? A note on this point, reading someone's blog or saying that you read it, is a good intro only when you demonstrate emotional intelligence after than sentence.

What will get you found?

a rote pitch right after a custom opening

not demonstrating knowledge of the very thing you pitch

following up to a pitch a mere day later with the "so are you going to write about this?" note

not responding to a question from the person you pitched for weeks

reaching out after a post, then not delivering the information

I wrote about these points a few times before. It's so easy to meet people, be interested, and participate today. The Chevy influencer outreach is an example of why working through relationships will get you better results than doing a cold pitch.

***

Let's open a dialogue, help me understand. Why is this still the exception? What do you find difficult about building relationships with bloggers?

***

[Disclosure: while I have issues with American auto makers designs, which is the reason why I would not buy one of those cars, I liked Chevy's approach. Chevy’s arrangements at SxSWi
included transporting me to the airport, and to and from the the dinner invitation to join several other bloggers and notables from the social
media space including Jason Falls, David Meerman Scott, C.C. Chapman, Liz Strauss, Steve Garfield, and more. I
received no payment or promise for writing this.]

Conversation Agent

Conversation Agent focuses on business, technology, digital culture, and customer psychology. At Conversation Agent LLC, I help organizations and brands that want to build better customer experiences tell a new story.